The People in My Neighborhood

There's a lady at work in customer service that is a bit odd. (Well, there is more than one, but this one in particular...). She's a bit old and small and skinny and asks the same questions week to week. Sometimes her questions don't really make sense. The team I work in does all kinds of stuff, so we get a lot of questions from and give help to customer service. Sometimes when this lady comes over, after she leaves, people kind of joke about whatever she was asking. I really don't think it's mean spirited, just kind of confused about trying to figure her out. Sometimes, it's a bit frustrated because someone had just explained that to her last week and, given that she's worked here for years, she should know it anyway.
I heard the other day that this woman's live in boyfriend died. She'd been out of work for at least a couple days, but I heard it one day and she was back to work the next and it didn't seem like she'd been gone very long. Perhaps, probably, I just had no reason to notice her absence.
It made me very sad. She is an odd person, but she's not even one of those people that you wonder what love must feel like to them because they are so bossy and controlling or maybe even just socially inept. This woman kind of seems like a shell of a person. Like you know someone's in there, but you never really see it come out. But, no matter what a person is like, to lose someone you love, hurts. And this made me very sad for this person.
To make matters worse, yesterday I overheard some people joking about her. I didn't really listen because it was making me too upset and I was busy, but they were close enough to me, I couldn't help overhearing a bit. I think these people were joking about what kind of person the guy must have been to be half of a couple with her. I generally respect the people that were making the jokes and can think that they were just being like that in that defensive way I think we all sometimes get when something is sad- we make jokes that really could be hurtful and in bad taste if anyone out of your immediate group overheard.
Anyway, I keep seeing this little lady and I feel so sad I almost cry. I wonder if anyone ever hugs her or even just lets her talk? And I'll make excuses for not being the one to do it by saying I don't really know her and she seems to be the kind of person that wouldn't warm up to you if you did try.

On a lighter note, another woman at work loaned me a book a while back. I think I blogged about this. I walked in on her and someone else talking about it and simply made a comment like "that sounds neat" and so she gave it to me. I didn't really want to read it. I really had a bit of a gut feeling that I wouldn't like it. But, I felt obligated and eventually did read it. There were parts of it that hit me badly, just because of my own experiences. In general, I didn't find it well written and there were other things that bothered me about how it approached a lot of the subject matter.
When I returned the book, I managed to thank her graciously and not say too much about hers and the other woman's gushing about how great it was. Of course, for me, this was all one big awkward situation I had to blog about in order to handle :)
It turns out that this lady has a whole library of these types of books and she seems to LOVE lending them to people. This, in theory, is a fun idea. She insisted on lending me more books. I didn't know how to decline. When she forgot the next day, I was a bit relieved and didn't say anything. But, later in the week, she left them in my cupboard with a note (she's only here part time so I don't see her regularly). I took them home and had them for a long time. I ignored them. I looked at them. I just didn't want to read them and it was becoming more on principle at this point.
One weekend, I was a bit bored and felt like reading SOMETHING, so I got out one of her books and read through the first chapter. If I was in a better mood or if it was a different time of year or my circumstances were different, I probably would have had fun reading this. But, I just couldn't get into it. Eventually, she asked if I'd had a chance to read them yet. I played it off, "oh, I was just thinking I need to get those back to you." I forgot to bring them the next day and wasn't quite sure what I would say when she asked how I liked them anyway. This awkward situation was getting painful! But, she was going to be gone the rest of the week so she told me to leave them in her cupboard and she'd get them on Saturday. In the meantime, she'd already brought me the next book in the series!
Yikes! I suppose my "lies" were catching up to me, although, I don't think I actually lied, I just tried to avoid the conversation. So, when I returned the first two books, I brought the next one back and left her a note saying we'd been rearranging our house (not a complete lie) and I was afraid I'd lose it so I'd just get with her later about borrowing it. I hoped this would defer the situation and life would go on.
Well, it's been a couple weeks and today, perhaps just making conversation, she asked me about rearranging furniture etc.
This is getting really awkward. Why is she so insistent that I borrow the book? Should I just borrow it and pretend to read it again? I think the series is one of those where you don't really have to read the one before so maybe I could just read it and figure out how to tell her no for the next one?
I'm so silly really. But, I just don't feel like reading these particular types of books right now and I'm so afraid of hurting someone's feelings I don't know what to do!